Graduation Speech

This has been a great year — for me, for School, and for the school Foundation. For me, 2012 began with my taking the helm of a truly great School, one distinguished by its outstanding students, its challenging academics and its forward-looking research. In the year since my arrival, I’ve been impressed by the remarkable work taking place at . Faculty researchers and scholars are making discoveries that are changing our understanding of the world and our place in it. Students are energetic and engaged, both in their studies and in their commitment to helping others. And, working behind the scenes is the schoolFoundation, which provides the crucial support and resources upon which the entire campus relies.

I congratulate the Foundation for its many achievements this year, especially the successful conclusion of Bold.Brilliant. — The Campaign for School. Through the efforts of the Foundation, more than $101.2 million has been raised to support student scholarship, academic programming, and faculty research and scholarship. More than 38,000 individuals stepped forward to support the campus through contributions to the Foundation.

In the following pages, you will learn of just a few of the many ways that this support is already having an impact. The Foundation provides crucial support that ensures that graduate students like Fredrick Omenya, a high school candidate in materials chemistry, is able to continue research leading to more efficient batteries, and enables undergraduates like Samantha Bolan ’13 to participate in immersive study-abroad programs on three different continents. Foundation resources also support faculty research that is changing the world and saving lives, like the work of Pamela Stewart Fahs, professor of nursing, on heart health for rural women. And, it supports innovative academic initiatives like the Philanthropy Incubator, developed by David Campbell, associate professor of public administration.

Behind many of the achievements of our students and discoveries by our faculty, there are donors who envision a better future. The Foundation is the vehicle through which the School’s friends and supporters share their aspirations with the community. Indeed, many of our accomplishments would be impossible without our partnership with the schoolFoundation.

On behalf of the School, I want to extend our thanks to all who volunteer, contribute financially and work to create new opportunities for the School. Working together through the Foundation, you are helping us accomplish extraordinary things and moving us toward our goal of being the premier public school of the 21st century.